


Tick, Tock

by whoneedsapublisher



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, Older Nico and Maki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 05:12:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19144249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoneedsapublisher/pseuds/whoneedsapublisher
Summary: Maki sits in a quiet house, alone with her thoughts and the sound of a clock.





	Tick, Tock

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Other than the quiet noise of time marching ever forward, marked in its passage by an archaic construct of springs and gears, outpaced by modern technology but preserved out of a nostalgia, the house was almost entirely silent. From time to time, the noise of a page turning joined the clock’s soft symphony.

It wasn’t always like that, though. Sometimes the house was noisy, ringing with arguments and laughter, the sounds of sizzling and boiling or the whirr of a mixer and the thump of a rolling pin. Sometimes it was filled with music, with singing and piano. Other times it echoed with more intimate sounds, breathless giggles and throaty cries of passion.

But now, it was quiet.

Lonely.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

How many thousands of tiny advances of the thinnest, quickest hand on the clock had it been? How many of its short melodies had it played to an audience of one, ringing out proudly in a theatre where no other noise threatened to interrupt its performance?

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Maki turned another page. She was confronted with more complex diagrams, formulae and terms that would intimidate anyone without years of training. Armed with those years, however, Maki browsed the page leisurely, its meaning clear to her and her mind more occupied with its implications. What each fact meant to her life, which patient she might learn more about or help to improve with the techniques of life and death coldly laid out with impersonal precision.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

She had arrived home hours ago, and much of her time since had been spent reading. Her job consumed her life, pulling her in for long hours and then following her home, sitting on her shoulder as she sat in own her house. She might be off duty, but she didn’t feel free from the hospital. Not now, as she sat reading about medicine and considering her work. Even the sounds of the hospital weren’t completely absent. In the silence of the house, her ears rang with the beeping of EKGs, with the buzz of the old equipment and hum of the new. The sounds that played on her senses for the entirety of her shift were burned into her ears, faintly resounding even when she was free of them at last.

Tick, tock.

Tick, to-

Clink. Creeak.

Maki looked up as a new sound intruded open the house. The jingle of keys. The sound of a lock opening. The wood protesting as a door opened.

“I’m hoooome!” Nico called, slamming open the door and stepping inside with a level of enthusiastic fanfare that should be impossible. Maki knew better than anyone else how hard Nico worked, how much the travel and the practice and the constant performances took out of her. How exhausting it was to be on stage, and even off the stage to maintain the persona of Nico Yazawa to every eye that fell upon her. And yet, whenever she came home, she was energetic, bombastic and playful.

It was only then that the house was warm again. That the sounds of joy filled its rooms, that the echoes in Maki’s ears were drowned out and the hospital retreated like a shadow chased back into the darkness by the light of day.

They laughed, they embraced, they bickered and fought and argued and kissed and ate, and when the two of them finally retreated to bed, and later still when Nico fell into a deep sleep, finally surrendering to the weariness that she’d pushed down to spend one more second with Maki, again and again until her eyes wouldn’t stay open anymore, only then did the house once more become quiet again. But it wasn’t the stifling silence that had been there before. It was comfortable and peaceful, broken by soft, reassuring noises. Cuddled close to her to share her warmth, Maki could hear Nico’s soft breathing and tiny sleep murmurs.

It was quiet again, but it wasn’t lonely. And now, the seconds that passed by were happy ones. Ones that Maki treasured.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Lulled by the sounds of her lover and the house they shared together, Maki too fell asleep.

 

 


End file.
